5 Minute GAPS Gravy

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I love gravy. And it turns out gravy is really, really good for you. That's a good thing because I love gravy on my mashed potatoes, with roasted meat, and with biscuits. Heck, I'll eat gravy with just about anything!

And hello, people! It's almost Thanksgiving! What is Thanksgiving without gravy?

But gravy can be a pain to make. Especially if you are on the GAPS diet and can't add flour to make gravy. Adding flour to broth is the fast, easy way to make gravy.

The old fashioned way of making gravy is to make a reduction sauce. I think reduction sauces taste better, and they are a lot healthier, since you're getting more concentrated broth — and you don't need to add flour.

How to Keep Homemade Broth in the Fridge to Make Fast Gravy

Since I've been reading about all the benefits of bone broth (helps prevent/reverse cellulite and wrinkles — isn't that enough?!) and since Seth is on the GAPS Diet, I like to have broth in the fridge 24/7. I used to store it in the freezer but I don't have the room anymore that we are in Vegas in a rented condo.

So here's what I do: I just reduce the homemade broth until it is very concentrated. I usually reduce it in half, but you can reduce it by 2/3 or 3/4 if you like. This is the magic of broth! You can reduce it or add water to it for whatever your purpose.

Next I add some gelatin. Stir it in until it's dissolved. The store in the fridge — it will be just like jello. When your broth has a lot of gelatin in it, it will keep a lot longer in the fridge. (The photo above is what my concentrated gellied broth looks like in the fridge.)

Now I have broth whenever I need it and I don't have to worry about it going bad. I can just take a little bit of the concentrated broth gel out and put it in a saucepan while I'm making dinner. I just reduce it a little more and I have instant gravy!

It's important that you DO NOT add salt to your broth when you make it. That way you can reduce it ad infinitum and you won't get super-salty gravy.

Recipe Notes

I say this is 5 minute gravy. It really is this fast and easy, folks! However, if you are making a lot of gravy, it will take a little longer than 5 minutes.

NEVER walk away from a reduction sauce. One minute it's bubbling away nicely and the next you've got a pan full of black char. (I know this from experience.)

If you are roasting a turkey, chicken, or other meat, you can use the pan drippings in your gravy. Simply pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the roasting pan and discard. Set the roasting pan on a burner or across 2 burners, add a little stock and turn the heat on high to “deglaze” the pan (in other words, get all the meaty bits off). Then add this stock with added pan drippings to your gravy.

Equipment

Directions

1. In a saucepan, add 1 cup of homemade chicken or beef stock or 1/2 cup of concentrated stock (see my notes above on how to store gellied stock in the fridge.)
2. Set burner on high and bring to a boil. Cook down (reduce) until it's as thick as you like (it should coat the back of a spoon).
3. Stir in the butter or ghee (if you are dairy-free, use lard, duck fat, or coconut oil or instead).
4. Pour the gravy into a gravy boat and serve.

This is a great idea! I have an increasing number of friends who can’t have gluten – good to know I can still make gravy when they come over for dinner. I’m a big fan of gravy too…the other day I made some to which I added a bit of bacon grease, thyme, and sage. My husband said it was the best gravy he’d ever had!

A note re using gelatin: people who are sensitive to MSG (as my husband and a close friend are) may have reactions to the gelatin. It has a natural form of MSG in it. I got a good quality gelatin and used it once to help thicken broth. I had no problem with it; my husband and friend had significant reactions.

I have found that broth that doesn’t necessarily gel in the the refrigerator does become gel once it’s been reduced and stored in the fridge.

And yes, don’t walk away from a reduction sauce. If you have a full large saucepan, you can leave it for awhile, but set a timer. When it gets down to about 1/3 of a pot, don’t leave it. I’ve had the charred pot too – such a drag when you just burned up your broth!

When you do a reduction sauce, you can let it cool, then pour it into ice cube trays. After the sauce has frozen, you can store the cubes in in ziploc type bag or something similar in the freezer. It obviously takes up much less space and the bag can be somewhat form fitted around other items. When you want the broth, just take out a cube or 2.

Only for those that are super sensitive due to the use of msg in so many foods today. Glutamate is in bones, and long cooking releases it.
A shorter simmer time, and keeping the temp a little higher seem to help if its a problem.
That means skipping the crock pot for making broth.

I did it again. I burned my stock! Damn! It set off the smoke alarm even.

I had 3 quarts I was reducing and I kept setting the timer for 30 minutes, going back to do work on my computer, then checking on it. When it got down to half a pot, I should have known better and set the timer for 10 minute intervals or I should have just stood there. Gotta start all over today.

No kidding on the reduction. I actually totally spaced reducing some broth last week and my house filled up with smoke when I was off doing something else… necessitating much laundry and cleaning, but thankfully that was all.
Once reduced, can water be added back to make more plentiful broth?

Oh, thank you Jen – I made some chicken bone broth/stock last week and froze all but one quart which is still in the fridge. I am going to boil it down to a reduction and see what I get. Thanks for this tip!

I LOVE gravy! One of my new favorite ways to eat gravy is over eggs for breakfast (hubby came up with this one). My kids love it too. How can you get any more nutrient dense for breakfast than pastured eggs cooked in pastured butter, smothered with gravy made from pastured animals and sprinkled with sea salt?

I’m a bit confused. I made bone broth (marrow bones and soup bones) this weekend and my broth is clear. I did strain it but really it was clear in the stock pot as well (although there were stringy brown clumps around the pot and in the broth). No clue how you get the brown broth I see in the picture (and the kind you buy in stores). Any ideas of what I did differently and how I can get a nice brown broth?

I didn’t realize the difference between bone broth and a high gelatin broth, so I bought the slow cooker thinking I was going to have to leave everything in there for 6+ hours, only to find out gelatin is what I need in GAPs and cooking too long breaks down the gelatin. I tried cooking my chicken for only 3 hours in there but I dont think it got hot enough in that time period…any ideas? I dont want the slow cooker to be a wasted investment hah.

I use my crockpots for making broth all the time. I usually make chicken broth as it’s my husband’s preference by far. I hadn’t head that lengthy cooking breaks down the gelatin, but I still end up with a gelatinous broth by doing the following.
I’ll put in chicken thighs or legs, trimmings, skin and bones from chicken breasts (husband prefers white meat), any left over turkey thigh bones I might have, chicken feet, a bit of seaweed and a dried shitake mushroom, some wine or vinegar, and I’ll add about 2 1/2 qts of water (I haven’t yet had access to chicken heads yet, but I suspect, like with fish head broth, the addition of glandulars from the head would make the broth that much more nutritious).
I prefer using one of my crockpots that has an even lower setting than the low on most slow cookers do and I’ll cook it for about 12 hours. I remove the thighs or legs, strip the meat off them and store it for later use, cut the bones to expose the marrow and put them back in the broth, and cook it for another 12 hours.
I was puzzled for awhile about why my broth didn’t seem to have gelatinous broth until, for space storing reasons, I began to create reduction sauces. I strain the broth from the crockpot into a large cooking pot and boil it down by half to 1/4 of the original amount of liquid. Once that cools down in the fridge, it’s definitely gelatinous!
I’ve found I really prefer the concentrated broth because there I times I want to add the broth benefit (and flavor) to a dish without adding so much extra liquid.

Cooking it down must really be key then! Thank you for the details. Excuse my lack of experience but how exactly do you cook it down? Just bring it to a boil and leave the lid off until some water evaporates?

Trackbacks

[…] 1. Let the coconut or almond bread sit out overnight. 2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 3. Place the bread cubes in a single layer on a sheet pan and bake for 5 minutes. 4. Transfer the bread cubes to a large bowl. 5. Chop the onion, celery, and herbs. 6. In a large saute pan, melt the butter or coconut oil and add the chopped onions, celery, apples, parsley, salt and pepper. Saute over medium heat for 10 minutes, until the vegetables are softened. Add to the bread cubes. 7. In the same saute pan, cook the sausage over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until browned and cooked through, breaking up the sausage with a fork while cooking. Add to the bread cubes and vegetables. 8. Add the chicken stock and cranberries to the mixture, mix well, and pour into a 9 by 12-inch baking dish. 9. Bake for 30 minutes, until browned on top and hot in the middle. 10. Serve warm, smothered in gravy (see my recipe for GAPS Gravy). […]

[…] Diet or a grain-free diet, leave out flour and just reduce your gravy without it. See my recipe for 5 Minute GAPS Gravy. You can also substitute cauliflower for the mashed potatoes, and substitute coconut milk for the […]

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